This application claims the benefit of priority of U.S. Provisional Patent Application Ser. No. 60/332,053, filed Nov. 21, 2001, entitled “Methods And Apparatus For Querying A Relational Database In A System For Real-Time Business Visibility” and U.S. Provisional Patent Application Ser. No. 60/332,219, filed on Nov. 21, 2001, entitled “Methods And Apparatus For Calculation and Reduction of Time-Series Metrics From Event Streams Or Legacy Databases In A System For Real-Time Business Visibility.” This application is also a continuation-in-part of U.S. patent application Ser. No. 09/917,264, filed Jul. 27, 2001, entitled “Methods and Apparatus for Enterprise Application Integration” and U.S. patent application Ser. No. 10/051,619, filed Oct. 29, 2001, entitled “Methods And Apparatus For Real-Time Business Visibility Using Persistent Schema-Less Data Storage.” The teachings of all of the foregoing applications are incorporated herein by reference.
The invention pertains to digital data processing and, more particularly, to methods and apparatus for enterprise business visibility and insight using real-time reporting tools.
It is not uncommon for a single enterprise to have several separate database systems to track internal and external planning and transactional data. Such systems might have been developed at different times throughout the history of the enterprise and, therefore, represent differing generations of computer technology. For example, a marketing database system tracking customers may be ten years old, while an enterprise resource planning (ERP) system tracking inventory might be two or three years old. Integration between these systems is difficult at best, consuming specialized programming skill and constant maintenance expenses.
A major impediment to enterprise business visibility is the consolidation of data from these disparate legacy databases with one another and with that from newer e-commerce databases. For instance, inventory on-hand data gleaned from a legacy ERP system may be difficult to combine with customer order data gleaned from web servers that support e-commerce (and other web-based) transactions. This is not to mention difficulties, for example, in consolidating resource scheduling data from the ERP system with the forecasting data from the marketing database system.
An object of this invention is to provide improved methods and apparatus for digital data processing and, more particularly, for enterprise business visibility and insight (hereinafter, “enterprise business visibility”).
A further object is to provide such methods and apparatus as can rapidly and accurately retrieve information responsive to user inquiries.
A further object of the invention is to provide such methods and apparatus as can be readily and inexpensively integrated with legacy, current and future database management systems.
A still further object of the invention is to provide such methods and apparatus as can be implemented incrementally or otherwise without interruption of enterprise operation.
Yet a still further object of the invention is to provide such methods and apparatus as to facilitate ready access to up-to-date enterprise data, regardless of its underlying source.
Yet still a further object of the invention is to provide such methods and apparatus as permit flexible presentation of enterprise data in an easily understood manner.